Three practitioners of historical fiction – Anita Heiss AM, Geraldine Brooks and Christopher Raja – discuss how their writing challenges dominant narratives of the past.

Anita Heiss’ award-winning novel, BilaYarrudhalangdhuanggray, is an epic tale of love, loss, belonging, and the struggle for freedom, told through the eyes of a young Wiradyuri woman named Wagadhaany. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks’ latest novel, Horse, is a gripping, multi-layered reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America. Christopher Raja’s forthcoming novel explores the experiences of Afghan cameleers in Australia, finding their way in a strange new place. Facilitated by Eleanor Hogan, with Geraldine joining from Sydney by videolink.

This panel was sponsored by Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Three practitioners of historical fiction – Anita Heiss AM, Geraldine Brooks and Christopher Raja – discuss how their writing challenges dominant narratives of the past.
Anita Heiss’ award-winning novel, Bila Yarrudhalangdhuanggray, is an epic tale of love, loss, belonging, and the struggle for freedom, told through the eyes of a young Wiradyuri woman named Wagadhaany. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks’ latest novel, Horse, is a gripping, multi-layered reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America. Christopher Raja’s forthcoming novel explores the experiences of Afghan cameleers in Australia, finding their way in a strange new place. Facilitated by Eleanor Hogan, with Geraldine joining from Sydney by videolink.
This panel was sponsored by Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

The NT Writers Festival is an annual celebration of stories, language, culture and ideas shaped by place that alternates each year between Mparntwe/Alice Springs and Garramilla/Darwin. In 2023, NTWF returned to Mparntwe and explored the theme of mwantye-le awaye | listen deeply. In Arrernte, mwantye-le awaye means to listen closely, to give things attention. In 2023, NT Writers Festival brought readers, writers and lovers of stories together to listen deeply – to each other, and to a diverse line-up of writers from across the country who shared truths, invited us to listen to the land, and helped us imagine a different future. 


Recorded by 8CCC Community Radio. Theme music composed by Vito Lucarelli. 

The <a href="https://www.ntwriters.com.au/nt-writers-festival/">NT Writers Festival</a> is an annual celebration of stories, language, culture and ideas shaped by place that alternates each year between Mparntwe/Alice Springs and Garramilla/Darwin. In 2023, NTWF returned to Mparntwe and explored the theme of mwantye-le awaye | listen deeply. In Arrernte, mwantye-le awaye means to listen closely, to give things attention. In 2023, NT Writers Festival brought readers, writers and lovers of stories together to listen deeply – to each other, and to a diverse line-up of writers from across the country who shared truths, invited us to listen to the land, and helped us imagine a different future. 
 Recorded by 8CCC Community Radio. Theme music composed by Vito Lucarelli.

NT Writers Festival

NTWF 2023 - Unsettling Narratives of the Past

A writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation, Billy-Ray Belcourt is a rising literary star. His debut book of poetry, This Wound is a World, won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize. His second collection of poems, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, and his collection of essays and vignettes, A History of My Brief Body, were both bestsellers.

Joining us livestreamed from Vancouver, Billy-Ray discusses his brilliant debut novel, A Minor Chorus. An incisive and moving exploration of what it means to be queer and Indigenous today. A Minor Chorus weaves conversations, interviews and stories of grief and survival in a North Alberta community with lyrical existential reflections. A Minor Chorus explores how the self is entangled with the social, the sayable with what remains unsaid, and how we can breach the prisons we live inside.

Billy-Ray is in conversation with Alyawarr scholar, Kathryn Gilbey.

A writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation, Billy-Ray Belcourt is a rising literary star. His debut book of poetry, This Wound is a World, won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize. His second collection of poems, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, and his collection of essays and vignettes, A History of My Brief Body, were both bestsellers.
Joining us livestreamed from Vancouver, Billy-Ray discusses his brilliant debut novel, A Minor Chorus. An incisive and moving exploration of what it means to be queer and Indigenous today. A Minor Chorus weaves conversations, interviews and stories of grief and survival in a North Alberta community with lyrical existential reflections. A Minor Chorus explores how the self is entangled with the social, the sayable with what remains unsaid, and how we can breach the prisons we live inside.
Billy-Ray is in conversation with Alyawarr scholar, Kathryn Gilbey.

NTWF 2023 – A Minor Chorus – Billy-Ray Belcourt

Clear your mind and learn about the Pitjantjatjara concept of listening in this special presentation by Alison Milyika (Tjulapi) Carroll and Margaret Smith from the NPY Women's Council Uti Kulintjaku Collective. Be guided through a Pitjantjatjara meditation, and learn about the work of the collective and about the words ‘kulintjaku/kulintja/kulini’, which combine concepts of both listening and understanding.

In Pitjantjatjara, uti kulintjaku means ‘clear thinking with an intention to understand'. The Uti Kulintjaku initiative brings together ngangkari, senior Indigenous women, and western health professionals to explore mental health concepts from both Aboriginal and western perspectives. Interpreter Kathy Tozer translated from Pitjantjatjara for this session supported by NPY Women's Council.

This podcast contains the Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) of the nangkari (traditional healers) and senior women from Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands.Dealing with any part of this traditional knowledge for any purpose not authorised by the custodians may be a breach of their ICIP. 

Clear your mind and learn about the Pitjantjatjara concept of listening in this special presentation by Alison Milyika (Tjulapi) Carroll and Margaret Smith from the NPY Women's Council Uti Kulintjaku Collective. Be guided through a Pitjantjatjara meditation, and learn about the work of the collective and about the words ‘kulintjaku/kulintja/kulini’, which combine concepts of both listening and understanding.
In Pitjantjatjara, uti kulintjaku means ‘clear thinking with an intention to understand'. The Uti Kulintjaku initiative brings together ngangkari, senior Indigenous women, and western health professionals to explore mental health concepts from both Aboriginal and western perspectives. Interpreter Kathy Tozer translated from Pitjantjatjara for this session supported by NPY Women's Council.
This podcast contains the Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) of the nangkari (traditional healers) and senior women from Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands. Dealing with any part of this traditional knowledge for any purpose not authorised by the custodians may be a breach of their ICIP.

NTWF 2023 – Morning Meditations – Uti Kulintjaku

Pulitzer Prize–winning author and journalist, Geraldine Brooks, joins us via livestream from Sydney to discuss her sweeping historical novel, Horse. Weaving together the tale of a painting discarded in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the true story of America’s greatest racehorse, Horse is a multi-layered novel that reckons with the corrosive legacy of slavery and racism in America. Revered for her ability to vividly evoke the textures of different historical eras, Geraldine appears in conversation with Alex Barwick.

This event was presented in partnership with Sydney Writers' Festival.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author and journalist, Geraldine Brooks, joins us via livestream from Sydney to discuss her sweeping historical novel, Horse. Weaving together the tale of a painting discarded in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the true story of America’s greatest racehorse, Horse is a multi-layered novel that reckons with the corrosive legacy of slavery and racism in America. Revered for her ability to vividly evoke the textures of different historical eras, Geraldine appears in conversation with Alex Barwick.
This event was presented in partnership with Sydney Writers' Festival.

NTWF 2023 - Unsettling Narratives of the Past

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